Monsters, Robots, Scientists and Black Market Dealers

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2013)

I didn't know what to expect with this film. I thought it was likely to be a chain of high quality and highly explosive combat scenes linked together by a weak plot. Having thoroughly enjoyed some of Guillermo del Toro previous works (Pans Labrynth, Cronos and Devils Backbone) and knowing of his love for and skill in "designing?" Monsters and Insect type characters, I was intrigued to see what he would offer in Pacific Rim. I was not disappointed!
The Good Points
1) Plot: This film had a strong and believable plot line as long as you can get your head around a portal between dimensions, luckily i can. Kaiju pass through a portal between two dimensions and attack Earth. The world unites and design epic transformer like Robots (Jaeger) to fight the Monsters. Some f**king genius has the idea of building a big wall(...idiot) and pull funding from Jaeger projects. Wall fails, the heavily diminished Jaeger project is all that's left to save humanity. whats not to like?
2) Visuals: Overall the graphics in this film were great. Realistic.
3) Robots (Jaeger): The Jaeger were awesome. It was great to see that there were many models of Jaeger and it was developed over time. This helped make them realistic and believable. The Mind Drift control system was clever as well. I thought it was a very original idea.
4) Monsters (Kaiju): I think Guillermo del Toro must have been like a kid in a candy store designing the Kaiju. each one was different. Some adapted for water, Land and even the Air. They had different attacking capabilities, brute force, teeth, spitting acid just to name a view.
5) Humorous Scientists and let's not forget the Dodgy Dealer: Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) a biologist studying the Kaiju. H must have been the only scientist ever to study the Kaiju as he seemed to only be finding out things that were fairly obvious to investigate. It seemed unlikely that he was the first scientist in however long the Kaiju had been attacking the earth to compare two Kaiju DNA samples. Even though perhaps the scientist was a bit slow at finding scientific breakthroughs he did have a good rivalry with Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) a physicist. There rivalry was amusing and was full of light hearted banter i enjoyed the scenes with these characters in. The Black Market "dodgy dealer" Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) also provided some light hearted entertainment in the mix of all this devastation. I really liked these three characters possible more than the main characters of the film.
The Bad Points
1) Character Development: I don't need to know the in depth back story of all the characters to route for them to save the world. The back story of the characters was not what this film was about. It felt like the film was trying to force the characters back story down my throat. Probably as a result of undertaking a highly ambitious task of telling this story in 131minutes that the character development seemed weak, rushed and it may have been better if they had just left it out.
2) Love: All i can say is at least it didn't end on a kiss.... i was so convinced it was going too! This is one film where i didn't think they needed to right in the "love" it would have been just as good if Rayleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako (Rinko Kikuchi) were just partners/friends.
and if I'mm being really picky:
3) Saving the boat!Really? what about all the demolition caused when there on land!: So in the opening scenes a Kaiju appears and and the Raleigh and his brother Yancy to "soldiers" are sent out in the ocean in there Jaeger to exterminate it. They are given strict instructions of what to do and this included leaving a ship of ten fisherman in the water near the fight. They do not listen and help the fisherman out of the way with there Jaeger before attacking the Kaiju. At first i thought " How considerate and nice to help them out". Later on in the film there are lots of highly destructive fights on the land and none of the Jaegers, try to assist any stranded people within the buildings and vehicles... this just made the first scene an unrealistic plot device, they would never have risked a in demand and highly expensive Jaeger to save such a few people especially with the added risk it would cause.
Pacific Rim is what happens when Maximus Prime and Godzilla have a fun night in the sack! It's awesome, It's epic, It's explosive and yet still realistic. Flowed at a fast pace throughout and thankfully then ending didn't feel rushed! Watch it see what you think!